Happy All Soul's Day!

I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. I've always loved the dark spooky stuff like vampires and the occult. When I was a kid, my favorite stories were witch stories. I guess it's the Scorpio in me.

But even so, I was so ready for yesterday to be over. We began the Halloween crafting in the beginning of October, took countless trips to the pumpkin patch, and snapped many, many photos. We've never had a build-up for a holiday like we have for this one, and I'm pretty much done. We had a costume parade at A.'s school, then a party with our playgroup which was a potluck and turned out to pretty much be a dessert party with cookies, cupcakes and Krispy Kremes for everyone.

The way A. decides what he's going to be for Halloween is I take him to either Old Navy or BabiesRUs, show him the costumes and ask him which one he wants. He has to pick something on the rack and I'm hoping I can keep that up for a few more years. I like being crafty, but I draw the line at sewing. Ben wore A.'s old frog costume from a few years ago. I expected him to fight the hood, but actually both boys refused to take off their costumes all day. At the end of the night, I had to trick Ben into his jammies. I just let A. sleep in his cow costume. He wants to sleep on a tail and horns, fine.

As an aside, G. got a little radio transmitter as an appreciation gift from work yesterday. A. walked around with the earbuds in all afternoon, yelling, "TRAFFIC! THEY'RE TELLING ME ABOUT THE TRAFFIC! THERE'S A STOLLED CAR ON THE 80 95! (pause) NOW THEY'RE TELLING ME ABOUT A RESTAURANT!" God, it was funny.

Ben wasn't too into the trick-or-treating. G. carried him and he didn't want to go up to the doors. He kept begging, "Dat way! Dat way!" pointing back to our house. So he and I made it a short trip and went back to our house to hand out candy while G. and A. prowled the neighborhood for more treats.

We visited a neighbor, an older woman who thinks the boys are adorable, and when she saw it was us, she went into her kitchen, grabbed 2 GALLON size ziplock bags full of candy and gave it to us. I thought she wanted me to open the bags and take two pieces out. No. BOTH GALLON size bags were for the boys. It was remarkable. An entire night's take at one house. We tried to talk A. into taking the ziplocs home and calling it a night, but he was not swayed.

Ben may have been afraid of trick-or-treating, but he LOVED handing out candy. He'd throw the candy in the kid's bags, yell, "THANK YOU!" and "HAAAH HAAHWEEN (Happy Halloween)!!" Then, after the kids left, he'd stare out the door calling, "Come! Come!" He'd point out into the darkness, look at me and plead, "Come! Come!" I promised there'd be more coming soon. I thought I might have to go get our neighbors and have them come over a few more times to appease him. Even the scary ghouls didn't phase him, which surprised me.

We had A. pick out his favorite seven pieces of candy, give or take a few lollipops, and told him to leave the rest for the Great Pumpkin, who comes in the middle of the night and swaps presents for the candy. He was most worried that GP would take his cute trick-or-treat bag, and no assurances from me would convince him, so we hid it on top of the refrigerator, where GP wouldn't be able to reach. He was thrilled with the coloring books that were left for him this morning, so that was a good idea and now we won't have to ration candy until February.

Halloween candy isn't what it used to be. There was hardly any chocolate or Hershey's miniatures. Lots of Laffy Taffy, which I just don't understand but A. seems to like. It's OK, though, because it means I'm not dipping into the Great Pumpkin's all the time.

Let the Thanksgiving crafting begin!